Who wants Robot Wars to come back to TV?

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Flippt
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Re: Who wants Robot Wars to come back to TV?

Post by Flippt »

Well, the show is called Robot Wars, not Robot Science or such. But the technology do have improved over the years and should be looked on from another perspective then what the tv show used to.
However, since the show were for Family entertainment it could get a bit tricky trying to change the format, even if the interviews with roboteers, pittalk with female-semi-enthusiastic-host and stuff like it could get a bit too corny as some point it still did entertain, just a certain age.

I would love to see Robot Wars on tv again, but hopefully they won't try and milk out every single robot and roboteer during the show. Quality over quantity, am I right?
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Re: Who wants Robot Wars to come back to TV?

Post by Rhys »

I guess that's just where we differ then. I always hated the cheesy parts where they'd interview the teams and they'd give childish answers, or where some heap of junk would get trashed and the commentator would go crazy. The best part for me was seeing the best machines and best drivers face each other in the big matches. I thought the pantomime of it all turned off a large portion of the potential audience.

And yes, it is called Robot Wars, and destruction should remain central to the theme, but how many Wars have you seen with a comedy Rap and Ladybird fur?
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Re: Who wants Robot Wars to come back to TV?

Post by Remote-Controlled Dave »

Better to have a fun variety than what it is now - an arena full of pnuematic flipper clones cos thats what works best...that's the way I'd see it going from a technology perspective. "Oh look, one robot had a 0.002mm ground clearence and the other had a 0.001mm ground clearence, so they got under them and won". Yawn.
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Re: Who wants Robot Wars to come back to TV?

Post by terminaldamage »

I think the games should be brought back. Watching Series 1 and 2 on Youtube recently made me realise just how much it had changed. It felt more like a game show in the early days (small things like Phillippa standing on the pendulum while explaining how each round worked etc) whereas the latter series' were more competition-intensive. Repetitive one-on-one fights became boring, even to me!

Having an assault course with ramps forces everyone to increase their ground clearance to cope with driving over them, which in turn allows for the more 'interesting' weapons (that would perhaps struggle to be effective against ground-scraping wedges) to come in to play, which in turn (hopefully) keeps things varied and prevents monotony from setting in.

I think there would need to be more focus on the technical side of things, but not so much that it bamboozles people. Something like Scrapheap Challenge, where they provide animations to help clarify the slightly more complex aspects of whatever was being built, would be a good mid-ground, along with some home-made footage of the build progress/tests etc. As an 11-year-old watching the first series, I would have loved some footage of the more technical stuff thrown in. And while I'm mentioning Scrapheap, get Robert Llewellyn on presenter duties!
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Re: Who wants Robot Wars to come back to TV?

Post by bitternboy »

This I also agree with.
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Re: Who wants Robot Wars to come back to TV?

Post by joey_picus »

terminaldamage wrote:I think the games should be brought back. Watching Series 1 and 2 on Youtube recently made me realise just how much it had changed. It felt more like a game show in the early days (small things like Phillippa standing on the pendulum while explaining how each round worked etc) whereas the latter series' were more competition-intensive. Repetitive one-on-one fights became boring, even to me!

Having an assault course with ramps forces everyone to increase their ground clearance to cope with driving over them, which in turn allows for the more 'interesting' weapons (that would perhaps struggle to be effective against ground-scraping wedges) to come in to play, which in turn (hopefully) keeps things varied and prevents monotony from setting in.

I think there would need to be more focus on the technical side of things, but not so much that it bamboozles people. Something like Scrapheap Challenge, where they provide animations to help clarify the slightly more complex aspects of whatever was being built, would be a good mid-ground, along with some home-made footage of the build progress/tests etc. As an 11-year-old watching the first series, I would have loved some footage of the more technical stuff thrown in. And while I'm mentioning Scrapheap, get Robert Llewellyn on presenter duties!
...I think Jamie has it spot on really, can't add anything to this :)
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Re: Who wants Robot Wars to come back to TV?

Post by bitternboy »

Although I think Robert Llewellyn is the last person I would choose... :)
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terminaldamage
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Re: Who wants Robot Wars to come back to TV?

Post by terminaldamage »

Who would you choose? I'm curious to hear other people's thoughts :)

My thinking behind Robert Lleweylln was that he has an interest in techy stuff and a background presenting it, is a 'big' enough name and has an energetic style. Alternatively having Richard Hammond would be cool, but I'm not sure if his presenting style would suit the nature of the programme. I think having a mainstream presenter wouldn't work, it needs to be someone in the geek/technology niche, but there aren't any other obvious names jumping out at me. (oh, maybe Jason Bradbury, with Pollyanna Woodward/Suzi Perry as pit reporter :wink: )
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Re: Who wants Robot Wars to come back to TV?

Post by Jonny »

Robert Llewellyn or Mark Evans
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Rhys
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Re: Who wants Robot Wars to come back to TV?

Post by Rhys »

Funnily enough I was also thinking Bradbury, I think he'd be great at it. Not Hammond though, he's an idiot.
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